Tag Archives: Tools

Useful Sites

Last Links before the End of the World

Happy Winter Solstice, everybody! I will be taking off the next week or so for the holidays. Once the new year rolls around though, I’ll be having some pretty exciting stuff to post in the lead-up to my new book (coming February 26th). Until then, enjoy these links:

Here’s a great story and video about how a prop maker and a woodworker are collaborating on affordable prosthetic hands. Richard Van As, a South African woodworker, lost his fingers in a woodworking accident. He couldn’t afford commercial prosthetics, so he worked with Washington-state prop maker Ivan Owen to build his own prosthetic.

This is a nice little article about the Fulton Theatre scene shop (including the props shop), located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

I recently came across a forum called The Effects Lab. It is meant for special makeup effects, mask making and creature design, and has a fairly active community of people discussing sculpture, animatronics, casting and other skills useful to many types of prop makers.

Wired has an article and first in a series of videos on DIY mold-making; making molds with silicon rubber and casting in plastic resin is commonly used in props shops, and these videos are a pretty straight-forward guide to getting started. Of course, the whole “doing it in your house where you and your kids eat and sleep” is questionable in safety terms.

Here’s a fun and whimsical tale of the tools in a toolbox having an argument. Warning: do not read if you cannot stand puns.

 

Features

Saber saw vs Jig Saw

3 Comments

Last week, I delved into the history of the tool we know as the jig saw. Now some of you may know this saw as a “saber saw”. I have heard many theories to explain the differences: “A saber saw can rotate its front while a jig saw’s is stationary”, “A jig saw is bigger and more powerful than a saber saw”, and even “saber saw is the correct term; jig saw actually refers to a scroll saw”. Are any of these correct? Just what is the difference between a jig saw and a saber saw?

Continue reading Saber saw vs Jig Saw →

Useful Sites

Friday’s Link-teria

It is the end of another week, and time for another round of the best props-related articles on the web:

Anna Warren continues adding great projects and articles at her Fake ‘n Bake blog. The latest shows a vintage Cheetos bag filled with vintage Cheetos that still allowed the actor to eat healthy (and non-staining) snacks during the actual performance.

Ron Paulk has a really well-made woodworking shop that fits in the back of his truck. Not only is there a video and pictures to give you a tour, but he has put the Sketchup plans online so you can download them for free. Though prop shops rarely need to be mobile, most of us work out of spaces not too much larger than Ron’s truck, so it is useful to see what space-saving methods he has come up with.

The Original Prop Blog has an interesting post about the Harry Crocker museum, which may have been the first Hollywood memorabilia museum, dating back to 1928.

Chris Schwartz has a great piece about making sure your obsession with the tools does not get in the way of actually practicing your craft.

Finally, if you like Star Trek, you really want to see this photograph.

Useful Sites

Friday Props Notes

It’s Friday; enjoy it while you can. For many of us, things are starting to gear back up. School is upon us, new seasons of theatre are beginning as summer stock draws to a close. It’s just a busier time of year all around. So enjoy the following bits from around the web if you get a break:

Here is a newspaper article on Zoe Morsette, who builds specialty props for Broadway (such as Les Miserables and Shrek) and television (including 30 Rock and Saturday Night Live).

This Diablo sculpture is a pretty intense piece made by Jason Babler, the creative director of Make Magazine. He does a tremendous job documenting the various materials and methods he uses to build the various shapes and textures which make up this creature.

“What Tools Do I Need to Start Woodworking” takes a good look at that question, and the answer is useful for any craft, not just woodworking. As the author says:

“The problem is that without experience, a beginner really isn’t able to tell the often-subtle difference between specialized tools. If you get one chisel, one saw, or one plane and put it to work, you’ll begin to understand the relationship between your eyes, brain, hands, sharp steel and wood. When you develop that understanding, the next tool to get becomes obvious.”

To celebrate the release of the first season of Grimm on DVD, NBC has released a short video with prop master Drew Pinniger detailing many of the fantastical props made for the show. Grimm is a fairly imaginative show, and the custom props it features every week are always fun to watch.

Useful Sites

May the Fourth be With You

1 Comment

This came through the prop managers group this past week (which got it from the stagecraft mailing list). Canadian mail-order catalogs from 1880 to 1975; like historical Sears catalogs, these are useful to see what the average Jane and Joe were buying throughout the last century and a half, making it great for period research.

The Design Observer Group has a semi-regular feature called “Accidental Mysteries”. The most recent installment features photographs and scans of antique measuring and marking tools. Other Accidental Mysteries have interesting things, such as these weekly rail passes from St Louis in the 1940s, and these punk and metal flyers from the 1980s-90s.

Chris Schwartz (of Popular Woodworking and Lost Art Press) is working on an interesting-sounding book on the “furniture of necessity”. Where the furniture of the rich and powerful is well-documented and archived, the furniture of everyday life is difficult to date and keep track of, particularly before the age of photography and mail-order catalogs. He is delving deep into research to come up with the forms of furniture that have remained unchanged for 200 years or more. It sounds like it could be potentially interesting for those prop masters and set designers who need to make period furniture for characters who couldn’t afford Chippendale chairs.

Here are a few interesting snapshots taken behind-the-scenes from the original Batman TV show (1966-68). Not much information on their provenance, but still pretty fascinating.

This site has a large number of videos, such as several different “documentaries” on various matte and miniature artists who have worked on films like Superman, Dark Crystal, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Thief of Baghdad, La Fin du Monde, The Third Man, Clash of the Titans, and The Da Vinci Code. It also has video featuring interviews of people who have worked on the FX crews of the Alien movies, and a video talking about restoring the Nostromo (the giant spaceship model) from the original Alien films. The videos are rather long and kind of all over the place; some of them have original 3D animation interspersed within the interviews. I’m not sure where the videos came from, but if you are willing to fight through the odd parts, you can pick up some interesting tidbits from the creators of some of cinema’s best visual effects.